Arizona National Guard: Paintball fun and Breast Flashing All Part of the Job

National Guard, not preparing to wipe out para-military, right wing extremists.

So I guess this is how our country’s weekend warriors express their patriotism, by supporting the fine American values of objectifying women, cheating whenever you can get away with it and abusing the easiest and weakest targets you can find.

No should be surprised that this behavior has gone for a decade without a peep from anyone in the ranks. In a culture such as Arizona’s where humanity means little more than a piece of paper and where jail and prison cells are bargained in the state house to the highest bidder (with guarantees to keep them full of profitable warm bodies– justice and habeas corpus be damned).

Depend on Jan Brewer doing precious little to stop this. Its just the kind of world she’s been working on hard on creating.

The Arizona Army National Guard is under fire after The Arizona Republic broke a story this weekend, reporting that recruiters had engaged in gross misbehavior, including sexual abuse, forgery and hunting homeless people with paintball guns.

The Republic conducted a five-month investigation into the Arizona National Guard’s conduct and culture, determining that criminal and ethical misconduct not only exists, but festers due to leadership failures and lax discipline. The newspaper conducted interviews with military officers and obtained records that suggest a decade-long patchwork of “sexual abuse, enlistment improprieties, forgery, firearms violations, embezzlement, and assaults.”

“Bum hunts” — Thirty to 35 times in 2007-08, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Amerson, a former “Recruiter of the Year,” drove new cadets and prospective enlistees through Phoenix’s Sunnyslope community in search of homeless people.Military investigators were told that Amerson wore his National Guard uniform and drove a government vehicle marked with recruiting insignia as he and other soldiers — some still minors — shot transients with paintballs or got them to perform humiliating song-and-dance routines in return for money. During some of these so-called “bum hunts,” female recruits said, they were ordered to flash their breasts at transients. Homeless women, conversely, were offered food, money or drinks for showing their breasts.

Staff Sgt. Chad Wille, cited as a whistleblower, learned of the activity from a 17-year-old private who admitted to taking part in the homeless hunts, according to a separate report from The Republic. She and other female cadets were pressured to join Amerson and flash their breasts at the homeless people they encountered, whom they tried to convince to dance, sing and show their own breasts.

Read the rest on Huffington Post where they also include a link to updates from the Arizona Republic.